Four Month Post Ablation

Four Months

I'm not too sure where to start as it has been quite the whirlwind week with Jury Duty selection and Dental check ups and then the 3rd item which I didn't reveal last week was my Holter results.

In general I feel totally fine for the past several weeks. I've done an outdoor run here and there and trying to get back to my new normal. In fact I'll be honest it is a HUGE struggle to hold back, but I know that it is best for me to allow my heart to heal.

I'm not going to dwell to much on the report, but there is good news and uncertain news. I don't want to say bad as I have not met with my cardiolgist so this is just my interpretation and no one else's.

Good News

During the two week monitoring I was in normal sinus rhythm and no Atrial Fibrillation! Greatest news ever. The ablation did exactly what it was supposed to do.

Uncertain News

As a result of this monitoring I had this one during one snowboard adventure, about five OTF workouts and a run. Of course the report doesn't say when it was and the day so I can only say there were three episodes of Ventricular Tachycardia. So Dr. Google says that's not good.

Soooo what do I do now? I either stop and do absolutely nothing or I wait for the call. Of course I got access to this report April 2nd so IF there was something to be concerned about then the cardiologist would have called me. That was advice from one of my classmates in my Stress management workshop. It is what it is. You now need to hear and wait for the doctor and no matter what "experts" are out there, they are not your doctor. They don't know you as well as your cardiologist.

So I'm taking that advice seriously and proceeding with caution and staying active as best as I can and within my limits.

Back to where It Started

I took the advice of my friend Heather when I met with her to see her sister play ultimate in a tournament in Gatineau. She had taken the week off and the above news I wasn't ready to share publicly until I found out more and her suggestion was to talk to my GP. At least talk to someone who sent me to the Heart Institute in the first place. He's always had a gut feeling or a hunch when it came to my medical problems. So her advice was perfect timing to set my anxiety levels back at ease. However, he was off for a week and I only saw him just before Good Friday. 

I brought in the paperwork from my Ottawa heart dashboard. The reports, ecg's and the one piece that I wanted interpretation is the Holter results. We talked about the V-tach and he basically gave a list of potential causes and basically the end result was that it's only been 4 months and it is possible I am still healing and I need to follow the original plan of moderate pacing and to stay the course. He said that for V-tach it is different for everyone and one factor he mentioned was stress and it could be a link to the V-tach, but it would be ideal to take it easy. I mentioned if my work allowed to go to 4 days/week if that might help. He said that he would medically approve if my work needed that as support. I think my original plan of working back the full 5 days was aggressive and maybe pre-mature not knowing what could be in place. In fact I had lunch with Erroll a couple of weeks ago and we compared our AFib stories as he was 3 weeks post ablation and was recovering well and following the blog to figure out how far to push and using my experience as his baseline. We compared our work strategies and I discovered that maybe I was pushing myself and just not realizing that I'm not getting younger and that I really need to give the body time.

Since it was a long weekend I've asked to meet with my bosses and propose my idea and see what happens. So for now I'll just keep myself in turtle mode and do what I'm allowed to do and to keep myself active...so stay tuned.